Benchmark: RegExp constructor vs literal vs premade, constructing in function, inline the test

Script Preparation code:

function getReConstructor() {
  return new RegExp('^[0-9a-fA-F]{24}$').test('132abc67219f019afe12901a');
}
function getReFactory() {
  return RegExp('^[0-9a-fA-F]{24}$').test('132abc67219f019afe12901a');
}
function getReLiteral() {
  return /^[0-9a-fA-F]{24}$/.test('132abc67219f019afe12901a');
}
var premadeLiteral = /^[0-9a-fA-F]{24}$/;
function getRePremadeLiteral() {
  return premadeLiteral.test('132abc67219f019afe12901a');
}

Tests:

new RegExp()
getReConstructor()
RegExp() factory
getReFactory()
Literal
getReLiteral()
Literal premade
getRePremadeLiteral()

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
new RegExp()
RegExp() factory
Literal
Literal premade

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 8 months ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/123.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 123 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
new RegExp()	5547883.5 Ops/sec
RegExp() factory	5522947.0 Ops/sec
Literal	13249286.0 Ops/sec
Literal premade	9706220.0 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 2 months ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's dive into explaining the benchmark and its various aspects.

**Benchmark Description:**
The benchmark measures the performance of different approaches to create a regular expression (regex) in JavaScript:

1. `new RegExp()` constructor
2. Literal regex (i.e., creating a regex pattern as a string)
3. Premade literal regex (i.e., using an existing compiled regex object)

**Options Compared:**

* **`new RegExp()` constructor**: Creates a new regex object from scratch.
* **Literal regex**: Creates a regex pattern as a string, without compiling it beforehand.
* **Premade literal regex**: Uses an existing compiled regex object to create the regex.

**Pros and Cons of each approach:**

* **`new RegExp()` constructor**:
	+ Pros: Can create complex regex patterns with ease. Compiles the regex on first use, which can improve performance.
	+ Cons: Creates a new regex object every time it's used, which can lead to slower performance compared to using an existing compiled regex.
* **Literal regex**:
	+ Pros: Fast and efficient, as the regex is created immediately. However, creating complex patterns manually can be cumbersome.
	+ Cons: Requires manual pattern creation, which can increase development time. Also, compiling the regex on first use may lead to slower performance.
* **Premade literal regex**:
	+ Pros: Can reuse an existing compiled regex object, reducing compilation overhead and improving performance.
	+ Cons: Requires creating a pre-compiled regex object beforehand, which can increase development time.

**Library Used:** None

There are no external libraries used in this benchmark.

**Special JS Features/Syntax:** None mentioned

No special JavaScript features or syntax are used in this benchmark.

**Other Alternatives:**

* **Regex literals with `RegExp()`**: Instead of using the constructor, you can use a regex literal with `RegExp()`. For example: `var myRegex = RegExp('^[0-9a-fA-F]{24}$');`
* **Using a regex engine**: Some JavaScript engines, like SpiderMonkey, have built-in regex engines that provide optimized performance.

**Benchmark Preparation Code Explanation:**

The preparation code defines four functions:

* `getReConstructor()`: Creates a new regex object using the constructor.
* `getReFactory()`: Creates a regex object using the factory method (`RegExp()`).
* `getReLiteral()`: Creates a regex pattern as a string and uses it to test a string.
* `getRePremadeLiteral()`: Uses an existing compiled regex object to test a string.

The code also defines two pre-compiled regex objects: `premadeLiteral` and its usage in `getRePremadeLiteral()`.

**Benchmark Result Explanation:**

The benchmark results show the execution count per second for each approach on a specific machine. The highest performance is achieved by using the literal regex, followed closely by the premade literal regex. The constructor-based approach has lower performance due to the overhead of creating a new regex object every time it's used.

Keep in mind that these results may vary depending on your specific environment and JavaScript engine.

Related benchmarks:

RegExp constructor vs literal vs premade, constructing in function, inline the test (version: 0)

Testing performance when using a new RegExp object vs a literal regex

Comparing performance of: new RegExp() vs RegExp() factory vs Literal vs Literal premade

Created: 5 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

new RegExp()

RegExp() factory

Literal

Literal premade

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 2 months ago):